(Nicola Smith’s post from the FINANCIAL REVIEW on 11 February 2026.)
NSW
Police blasted over treatment of praying protesters at rally: New South Wales
police crossed a red line when they forcefully disrupted Muslims praying on the
street during a protest against Israeli President Isaac Herzog, says
Australia’s special envoy to combat Islamophobia.
Envoy Aftab Malik has demanded an apology for the police treatment of praying protesters, saying it was “simply unacceptable”. A decision by the Albanese government to invite Herzog this week to console the Jewish community in the aftermath of the Bondi attack prompted nationwide demonstrations against the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza and angry confrontations with the police on Monday night.
In one widely shared incident, NSW Police appeared to repeatedly punch an unarmed man showing officers his hands and in another, a group of Muslim men kneeling in prayer outside the Town Hall were roughly moved on by officers.
NSW Premier Chris Minns said there was “no suggestion under any circumstances that police would have wanted to cause offence to the people praying or get in the way of people lawfully exercising their religion”.
Asked
about the violent scenes in question time on Tuesday, Prime Minister Anthony
Albanese said the police would examine the footage, particularly of the people
who were praying, to examine the circumstances of the action taken.
But
Aftab Malik told senators at an estimates committee meeting late on Tuesday
that the police should have known better. “Police officers tend to be stuck
between a rock and a hard place, but there are some red lines, and that was
crossed last night. That’s simply unacceptable, and the police force should
know better,” he said.
“NSW
does a lot of cultural training. They really understand the sensitivities
around different cultures. There is no excuse, and I do not accept the
premier’s response,” he said. “When Muslims are praying, it literally is a
conversation with God … And if you quickly just go on YouTube, you will see
imams praying in earthquakes, and they don’t move. It’s that serious.
“And
so what happened was disgraceful. It was appalling,” said Malik, adding that
individuals he had spoken to were beaten, grabbed and thrown on the floor, and
were now scared. “The police need to come out with a public apology. There
needs to be an investigation, and there needs to be consequences because that
is simply unacceptable,” he said.
(Blogger's Notes: To intimidate the non-Muslim general public those rebellious Muslims residing in the Western civilized countries frequently staged mass-praying in public. And the local cops have been sick of that public-disobedient behaviour, and finally our Christian-majority NSW police has bravely crossed that so-called redline and blasted those fucking Muslims out of their fucking public prayers at wherever they please.)
